Our Project

En Belen is a residential Gesundheit Global Outreach community health project working with the community of Pueblo Libre, Belen, in Iquitos, Peru. Our team consists of professionals in art and healthcare whose goal is to maintain a truly collaborative relationship with the community of Belen.

This project originates from the Festival of Belen which celebrated its 11th year in Belen. Since May of 2015, En Belen has maintained a permanent presence in the community. Through this bond we have developed community activities, health care programs, and workshops which prioritize the needs, wishes, and dreams of Belen.

Our Philosophy

Our principal method utilizes the theatrical role of the clown for its power to open channels of communication in an atmosphere of affection, empathy and happiness. The clown allows us to relate horizontally to each other, inviting us to create a new way of working together in community. Being together in day-to-day life, the clown creates bonds of mutual trust, opening the possibility of engendering friendships, creating space for mutual exchange, growing, and learning together.

We use other tools such as music, visual arts, literature, and dance because we believe in social transformation through art and we see its results daily. All these tools awakened the capacity of the imagination and of dreaming, but it also of reflecting and processing the experiences in another way, of deepening each person’s experience, of providing and amplifying the possibilities of future change.

We believe that small actions will gradually transform community, day to day, person to person.

Our Objectives

Established ties with community based on trust, respect, and love

Develop understanding of the needs problems and priorities of the community and put all our tools at their disposal

Create spaces that invite reflection and critical thinking in order to contribute to the process of empowerment of the community

Stimulate the exploration of the experiences and dreams in pursuit of the dignity and beauty of each human being

The Activities

Colors

Each week in the streets of Belen, the girls and boys become artists! They give free reign two small paint brushes, pencils, chalk, and colored paper with the only instructions being to entertain us and themselves an to share material space And time together.

Magic Carpet

“And beautiful vibrant colors… this is just the beginning!”

The magic carpet is seen flying week to week. Upon encountering a corner in the streets or about during the flood time the magic carpet comes around she brings stories, songs, folk tales, and is apt to meet up with a Belen which also has many stories to tell.

Workshops on Love and Sexuality

Once a week we meet with a group of adolescents from 11 to 14 years of age. We play, work, ask questions, tell stories, observe, share, and explore together what it means to be growing up.

“Entre Mujeres” (“Among Women”)

A question, a doubt, a conversation along the way can change to a consultation. A chat, another visit, a neighbor, my friend, my daughter,” once that happened to me”, “and it happened to her too”, “ it made me a little afraid to ask”. Thus, among ourselves, from them and from our questioning, was born “Between Women”. In this workshop we meet with women to get to know each other, to think together, to join with each other, to give and receive feedback and to share with each other.

Family Visits/ House Calls

Visiting families in their homes is one of those ways we get to know each other, to make friends and to share daily life. Out of these visits are born health consultations, assessments, advice, and the possibility of kidding along with each other.